"Love Forgives — Part 1"

After spending considerable time on “Love protects”, we now transition to our next topic, “Love forgives”. I tend to view protection as a proactive step to avoid a problem, whereas forgiveness is a response when something has gone wrong. The Kendricks call forgiveness one of the toughest challenges of Love Dare. They go on to say that “Forgiveness has to happen, or a successful marriage won’t.” Tim Keller makes this powerful statement: “I don’t know anything more important in marriage than the ability to forgive fully, freely, unpunishingly, from the heart.” I believe these statements hold true for any marriage, but perhaps especially so for troubled marriages because the chance of rebuilding without forgiveness is impossible.

Numerous Bible stories and passages illustrate forgiveness. Love Dare chooses the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35). As a summary, a king mercifully forgives his servant a massive debt. The servant however, is unwilling to forgive another of a trivial debt. Furious, the king casts the servant into prison. The meaning behind this story is straightforward: God is the king while we are the servant. And Jesus uses this to teach us that since God forgives a debt we could never repay, then by His grace, we can forgive each other.

The Kendricks next paint a chilling analogy. When we are unwilling to forgive others, we create a prison within our heart. It may be filled by those who have wounded us as a child, or perhaps former friends that betrayed us. Family members may be there too. And sadly, even our spouse may be trapped in this jail of our own making. Often, we find our lack of forgiveness actually traps us in a prison of bitterness and pride, which can prevent our healing.

But a better ending is possible. Through God’s grace, Jesus offers us the key to set everyone free – but only if we are willing to forgive. This seems like the obvious choice, but it is difficult for some. There is too much pain and anger. He is asking too much and we may not want any part of it. We see it as “risky” because what the other person did was wrong and hurtful. To make it worse, they may deny what they did, not be sorry about it, feel justified, or even blame us for what happened. Regardless of the circumstance and reasons, our unforgiveness will make us a prisoner — like the servant in the parable who was thrown in jail.

We will continue from here next week, but let's close today with this Love Dare thought. “The romance, intimacy, and enjoyment of your marriage is greatly dependent upon your mutual commitment to allow no unforgiveness to exist between the two of you. Healthy marriages are not produced by people who don’t hurt each other, only by people who choose daily to keep no record of wrongs (see 1 Corinthians 13:5).”